British Empire

I

Introduction

British Empire, name given to United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the former dominions, colonies, and other territories throughout the world that owed allegiance to the British Crown from the late 1500s to the middle of the 20th century. At its height in the early 1900s, the British Empire included over 20 percent of the world’s land area and more than 400 million people.

The foundations of the British Empire were laid during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603). Under Elizabeth, English support for naval exploration increased dramatically, and in 1580 Sir Francis Drake became the first Englishman to sail around the world. Overseas commercial and trade interests were also established in the form of the English East India Company in 1600. However, because England was at war with Spain, which had a large colonial empire in the Americas, English colonization in the Americas remained almost unknown in the 16th century. The first real venture was the attempted settlement of Roanoke Island off the North American coast in 1585 by Sir Walter Raleigh. This settlement did not survive, and the English did not attempt further exploration and colonization in the Americas until 1604, after peace had been made with Spain.

II

The First British Empire

In the 17th and 18th centuries, Britain established its first empire, which was centered in the Caribbean and in North America. It began with the establishment of tobacco plantations in the West Indies and religious colonies along the Atlantic coast of North America. England established a presence in India during the 17th century with the activities of the East India Company. Although this presence became larger and more entrenched during the 17th and 18th centuries, India did not come under direct British rule until 1858.

An important factor in the first empire was mercantilism, an economic policy based on protected trade monopolies and governmental control of manufacturing. Under this system, colonies were established mainly to increase the wealth of the home country. They were either used as sources of raw materials or as markets for products of the home country. The intention was to keep the amount of the home country’s exports higher than the amount of its imports; since the home country would be selling more than it was buying, its capital reserves would grow. Because this system required strict governmental control, the English began to regulate the affairs of its colonies closely. In 1651 the English parliament passed the Navigation Act, which stipulated that imports into English harbors and colonies could only be carried in English ships or those of the producing country.

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17th Century

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1

North America

The first permanent English settlement in North America was established in 1607 at Jamestown, Virginia. In 1620 the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts Bay and founded Plymouth Colony, the first permanent English settlement in New England. The colonists set up a Puritan community, forming the Massachusetts Bay Company in 1628. Other religious colonies were established in Rhode Island (1636), where the colony was based on the principle of religious toleration; Connecticut (1639), based on Congregationalist religious beliefs; and Maryland (1634), a haven for Roman Catholics.

These colonies stayed close to the coastline, never penetrating far inland, and in fact each was linked more closely to England than to the other colonies. However, because of the distances involved, effective government from England was impossible, so colonial governors were authorized to form assemblies elected from among the colonists to act as a legislative body and advise the executive.

English presence was gradually extended further down the eastern coastline. In 1664 New Amsterdam was seized from the Netherlands and renamed New York. The Dutch inhabitants were the first large, established community overseas to be brought forcefully under English rule. In 1681 William Penn, under a royal grant, formed the colony of Pennsylvania.

After 1688 wars with France led to further English expansion. Colonies in New England grew steadily, and the Hudson’s Bay Company was established near Hudson Bay to participate in the fur trade. This growing English presence intensified friction in the 1690s with New France, based in the nearby St. Lawrence Valley. As a result of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), in which England (by now Great Britain) and its allies fought against France and Spain, British forces captured the French American possessions of Acadia and Newfoundland. The Spanish islands of Gibraltar and Minorca were seized in the same conflict, giving Britain for the first time a territorial presence in the Mediterranean Sea. The Peace of Utrecht (1713) resolved the war, and officially ceded the conquered lands to the British. It also extended British rights to supply slaves and other trade goods to the Spanish Americas, and as a result, established Britain’s status as an overseas power approximately equal to its main European competitors.

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2

The West Indies

The first British foothold in the West Indies was Saint Christopher (later Saint Kitts), acquired in 1623. The English plantations established in the West Indies were worked initially by white indentured servants from England. The West Indian tobacco boom gradually petered out and was replaced by sugar production, which required a larger labor force that was provided by slaves from Africa. This began the transformation of the islands into a plantation economy based on slavery.

In 1655 the English conquered the Spanish colony of Jamaica—the first English colony taken by force. During the 1660s, semilegitimate English privateers (private vessels commissioned by a government to attack possessions or trade of a rival country) raided Spanish trade and settlements. In 1670 England and Spain signed the Treaty of Madrid, in which Spain finally acknowledged English possessions in the Caribbean. The sugar economy expanded, and the Royal Africa Company was formed in 1672 to bring large numbers of African slaves to the Caribbean. The plantation owners obtained labor, but at the cost of anxiety about their own security; by the 1670s slaves had become the largest proportion of the population in the English islands.

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